


A New Definition

by sapphicstarshine



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: F/M, Gore, Insecurity, ghost au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 08:57:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14233797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicstarshine/pseuds/sapphicstarshine
Summary: That thing in the mirror wasn’t him.That thing was barely even human.





	A New Definition

**Author's Note:**

> me n my bud have a [ghost au](https://wowthatsartbruh.tumblr.com/tagged/ghost%20au) and im having a wonderful time

His death was painful. 

He could still remember it clearly

Flames licking at his skin, muscle pulling away from bone, tanned flesh turning cracked and charred as it shrunk away and split painfully, the smell of burning hair, agonised screams that threatened to tear open his throat were the only things happening in his world, encompassing his entire consciousness with a brutal, primal agony- and then nothing.

Blissful nothingness

The sudden void was like a balm- no pain, no screaming, no smell of burning, just a soothing darkness seeping into the cracks in his skin, calming him from the inside out and whispering something soft and indistinguishable. He couldn’t tell what it was saying, but he knew it was friendly. 

He didn’t remember closing his eyes and slipping off into a dreamless sleep- how could he? But he woke up to a cluster of excited murmurs and hushed shushing

_“You’ll wake him up,”_

_“That must have hurt,”_

_“Do you think he can even talk?”_

_“Shh! Let him rest, he looks like he needs it,”_

Rich blinked his eyes open and squinted around- the vision in his left eye seemed limited for some reason. He moved a hand up to brush whatever was in the way out of the way and froze. His hand was shiny and blackened, angry red cracks opened up whenever he moved his fingers- his eyes followed up his arm to the rest of his body and if he still had to breathe he knew he’d be having a panic attack right now.

“What the _fuck_ ,”

His voice was raspy. His voice wasn’t supposed to be raspy.

A blonde girl with a gaping bullet wound in the throat and a girl with an unnervingly long neck exchanged worried glances before a third girl- chubby and tall, with a gentle smile on the side of her face that wasn’t bloodied and torn up kneeled in front of him and took his hands in hers- her one hand. She had one hand. She had one arm. She had one hand and one arm and a torn up face and he was a charred fucking mess and-

“Hey, it’s okay, we’re not gonna hurt you,” her voice was... off somehow, he couldn’t put his finger on it at the moment, but it was off, “It’s okay, we’re all dead here, you’re safe now,”  
“I- _what the fuck_?” he took his hands back and got shakily to his feet, pushing past the three of them to look for a mirror.

He found one and stopped in his tracks. 

That thing in the mirror wasn’t him. 

That thing was barely even human. 

Tufts of hair that had stubbornly clung on, or maybe just got trapped between melting skin stuck out, mocking him in their feeble attempt to retain some normality. His stomach turned as he realised the thing in his left eye had been his fucking _skin_ , melted down the side of his face and obscuring his vision and- 

...Okay, he could still cry, that was something.

That was… was that good? Crying sucked but he always felt better afterwards. Maybe he’d cry away this entire nightmare and he’d wake up handsome and studly and not looking like Freddy Kruger’s scrotum and everything would be okay.

Everything would be okay.

Everything would be okay.

Someone was telling him that distantly, a single arm wrapped around his shoulder and gently tugging him away from the mirror and into a soft, comforting hug.

*

Everything was not okay.

He never got used to seeing himself like this, everytime he passed a mirror he scared the shit out of himself. He pointedly kept his eyes to the ground whenever he walked by one, quietly hoping nobody would notice.

Everything was not okay.

*

He spent some more time with his new housemates over the next few weeks, they were all from different times but he found that nothing connected people more than memes, and that stood true even for those of them that had never even heard of the internet- which was most of them. The only one who had was Michael but his knowledge was still hugely outdated. 

Michael was… hot. There was no use trying to mince words, Michael was hot as hell, but he was… married? Or something? To the weird fancy green kid. Rich told Michael he liked his hair once and Jeremy had appeared out of nowhere to wrap all twelve feet of his ridiculous noodle limbs around his ghost husband and scowl at him until he left. Michael had given him an apologetic shrug.

Fuck that guy, really. Twink hulk looking little son of a bitch. Twulk. Yeah, that’s what he was, Jeremy Heere was a fuckin twulk.

Rich had just rolled his eyes and wandered off to pester Jake some more. He liked Jake, he was weird and old fashioned (though who wasn’t here) but he’d died breaking the law or something which made him bomb as hell in Rich’s book, but he was busy doing… whatever that weird dance was with Chloe. 

Chloe seemed cold but she was a nurse or something so must have a heart in there somewhere? Figuratively speaking, she’d definitely had a real physical heart, he knew because there was a bullet wound dead center of it. 

Brooke was sweet and he’d managed to get close to her, even if communication was tricky at the moment. She couldn’t talk with the hole in her throat and it took him a while to read her handwriting even when she printed it for him (fucking dyslexia had followed him into death because of course it had), but he was working on learning sign language like the others had. 

Christine was… a lot. Very high energy for a dead woman. He didn’t know her as well as some of the others but she always managed to reign in Jeremy’s 19th century courting bullshit so Rich didn’t have to duel him if he smiled at Michael too long, and he was grateful for that.

Jenna was his best friend. He didn’t know how he would have coped without Jenna. She was sweet and funny with a twisted sense of humour and a knack for investigative journalism that would tragically go unutilised. Rich couldn’t help but feel like she could have made a real change in the world if she’d been able to grow up.

But by far Rich’s favourite person in this entire house wasn’t even a person, it was that goddamn fucking penguin. It was the nastiest little asshole Rich had ever met, but it was small and cute and despite everything, it actually liked Rich. Hell, it adored Rich. Maybe the little demon was just attracted to the smell of burnt flesh, who knows. Michael had looked devastated when he found out Randall had a favourite human who wasn’t him.

Rich had made himself scarce before Jeremy could pin the blame on him, not noticing the pair of foggy white eyes following him out of the room.

*

“What’s poppin’ daddio,” Jenna smiled and perched beside him on the roof, intact half on his good side. He just shrugged in reply, staring into the distance, “Sorry about Jeremy, he can be kind of a germ sometimes, dating was super weird back then,”

Rich snorted bitterly, “He has nothing to worry about, Michael would never be interested in me. I look like a fuckin monster,” he rested his head on his shoulder and sighed emptily, “I was hot as hell, y’know?”

“Nope!” she chirped cheerily, putting her arm around him and pulling him into an expert half-hug, “I was never much of a Dolly even when I had my whole face, boys didn’t much go for the uh… more abundant curves,”

“Dolly? I thought your name was Jenna”

“Y’know, cutie, hottie, I think shortie is the newest term?” Jenna tried to keep up best she could, it had been easier since he’d brought his phone and an internet connection to the house. It was basically her phone now, but he was fine with that. Jenna deserved it.

“Oh. Well, they’re a bunch of dumbasses, you’re hot as hell. You’d be like, exactly my type if I didn’t look like Clive Barker’s wet dream,”

Jenna grinned. She loved horror, he knew she’d appreciate that, “What if it’s mine too?” not that they had them anymore. (Either that or his dick specifically had been completely and utterly demolished by the fire, who could say.) 

He laughed and shoved at her playfully, “Don’t be stupid, Jake likes you, Jake’s fine as hell aside from that eye thing,” Christine liked her too, but she had a thing with Brooke and he didn’t want to encourage any homewrecking. Especially since they’d all have to continue sharing the home.

“Nah, Jake’s cute but he’s kind of a weenie. I tried watching Poltergeist with him once and he cried. I don’t think he realised it wasn’t real, like it was super advanced for a movie sure but- what are you looking at?”

“You thought _Poltergeist_ was advanced for a movie? Oh, oh dude, Jenna, holy shit, how long has it been since this place got new movies?”

“Oh! No, we’ve gotten new ones since, at the time I thought it was advanced,”

“Oh, right, good, there’s been a lot of good ones since then. ...Wait he knows _we_ are technically poltergeists, right?”

“I don’t think he does,”

“I love that moron,”

“Same,”

They fell back into silence, Rich taking Jenna’s hand in his and stroking the soft skin. Everything about Jenna was soft and plush and he loved it- she was a far cry from the scrawny, shrivelled husk he’d been reduced to. Jenna had been a source of comfort for him since day one, she understood his situation like nobody else. 

Jenna was beautiful. 

“...Was it hard for you? Not. Looking the same?”

“At first, yeah, but... I dunno, it’s kinda liberating?” he gave his hand a gentle squeeze and traced a few of the cracks, “Doesn’t matter what you look like if you’re this far removed from normal,”

He watched her trace the cracks in his skin with none of the instinctive revulsion and panic he felt when anybody else touched them. Jenna liked them. He still hated them, but Jenna liked them. She said they felt nice. She made him feel nice, as stupid as that sounded.

She pressed a kiss to his hand, “You find your own definition of beauty,”

“You mean like you?” Fuck. Fuck, no that was dumb, that was cheesy and dumb and you’re not cute enough to make cheesy and dumb endearing anymore, _shit_ \- wait giggles? She was giggling? Oh, great, wow, wonderful, now she’s laughing at you, now you fucked up, good going Richard.

“You’re sweet, Rich,”

Oh. 

She leaned in and pressed a warm kiss to his lips, not caring about the battleground of twisted, mottled skin that made up his face now. He froze for a brief second then relaxed, bringing his hand up to cup her ruined cheek and smiling goofily. She giggled again and gave him another peck on the nose.

**Oh.**

“I love you,” he blurted out before his stupid brain could stop his stupid mouth. Jenna’s face lit up and she clapped him on the back a couple of times excitedly, almost sending him tumbling off the roof.

“I-”

He interrupted her before he could lose his nerve, “You wanna be my Sandra- fuck, no, what was it- Sophie? Will you be my Sophie?” he’d looked up terms they’d used for girlfriends in her day especially for this occasion should it have ever come up (not that he’d thought it ever _would_ come up, seeing as Jenna Rolan was an actual literal angel from above and he was a disgusting little goblin man, but here he was. His wishful thinking had somehow paid off.)

“Yes!! Holy shit duderino, yeah!!” he had no idea where she picked up half of the slang she used but God, he fucking loved it. She was so cute, the grin stretched across her face, the dimple on her normal side, the way her eyes still managed to twinkle beyond the white cloud- she was just stunning.

And she liked him back.

And everything would be okay.

*

Rich didn’t avoid the mirrors anymore.

He didn’t stand and preen like he would before, but he walked by them with his head held high, a smile on his face, and a beautiful girl by his side.

And everything was okay.

**Author's Note:**

> i love jenna rolan with all my heart and u can pry horror junkie jenna from my cold dead hands


End file.
